1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a positioning control device and a positioning control method for determining a current location based on positioning requests from a plurality of applications.
2. Related Background Art
Positioning functions such as global positioning systems (GPS) have recently come to be installed even in cell phones and other compact information devices (to be referred to as “mobile stations”), and various services are now provided based on positioning results of a current location determined by various applications (see, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-open Gazette No. 2003-078943). In these mobile stations, competition avoidance measures are employed, such as giving priority to the first request or giving priority to the latter request, in order to avoid competition over GPS resources when generating positioning requests from a plurality of applications.
However, in the case of giving priority to the first request, since a time when positioning processing of the first request will be completed is unknown and since positioning process of the latter request is carried out after completion of positioning processing of the first request, there is the problem of the standby time of the positioning request of the application generating the latter request becoming excessively long. On the other hand, in the case of giving priority to the latter request, since positioning processing is suddenly interrupted if a positioning request is made by another application while positioning processing is still in progress, there is the problem of an increase in the number of cases in which an application is unable to receive positioning results.